Succeeding in Diversity Culture, Language and Learning in Primary Classrooms

Jean Conteh traces a group of successful bilingual learners as they progress through Key Stage 2 in mainstream classrooms to show how successful children are helped by their interactions and experiences at home and school to move confidently between social worlds, cultures and languages in their daily lives. These are the fortunate children: the skills, knowledge and strategies they display in all these interactions are, as Dr Conteh describes, recognized and valued in classroom pedagogy and in assessing their achievements in school. But they are the exception - most bilingual learners are still condemned to failure in school. The implications for educational policy, teacher education and classroom practice of this case study are set out and linked in new ways with established knowledge and ideas about linguistics, learning and language in the mainstream classroom. Supported with practical suggestions and resources, this book should enable primary teachers to provide what bilingual children in their class need to learn successfully.